Inclusion First: Methods That Work

Job-Shadowing Mobility in Cluj-Napoca

Inclusion First: Methods That Work is a professional learning mobility in Cluj-Napoca built around one essential question: how do we design sustainability activities that truly include everyone — in practice, not only in intention?

Organised within the framework of Pianeta in Bilico – A World on the Edge, this job-shadowing experience allows education professionals from Terra Dulcis to learn directly from the community-based sustainability work of GreenHope Association, an organisation with extensive experience in combining climate action with migrant inclusion.

Throughout the week, we explore real methods that help diverse groups participate meaningfully — especially migrants and people with fewer opportunities. The focus is on facilitation, accessibility, and trust-building: how to create spaces where people feel welcome, respected, and able to contribute to environmental initiatives.

What Is “Inclusion First”?

Inclusion First is designed for professionals who create, facilitate, or support community learning activities.

The experience examines how sustainability projects — such as urban gardening, circular economy practices, waste reduction campaigns, and eco-mobility initiatives — can actively involve vulnerable communities rather than treating them as passive beneficiaries.

Participants observe how GreenHope integrates migrants into environmental actions, ensuring that inclusion is not an additional layer, but a structural component of each initiative.

This means asking practical questions:

• How do we design activities that are accessible to different social groups?

• How do we encourage active participation across cultural backgrounds?

• How do we build long-term engagement rather than one-time involvement?
  
  

The week focuses on translating these questions into methods that can be applied back home.

The mobility is based on non-formal education and learning-by-doing. Participants learn through direct observation of ongoing sustainability projects, participation in selected community activities, and structured reflection sessions. Workshops explore inclusive facilitation techniques, intercultural communication, and participatory environmental education.

Community visits provide concrete examples of inclusion in action — whether through collaborative urban gardening, public climate awareness initiatives, or local circular economy projects.

Each day includes guided reflection, allowing participants to analyse what makes certain approaches effective and how these methods can be adapted to their own organisational contexts.

From Observation to Application

By the end of the mobility, participants leave with:

• Concrete facilitation tools

• Adaptable session ideas

• Practical strategies for engaging migrants in climate action

• Clearer approaches to designing inclusive sustainability programmes
  
  

Most importantly, they return with a strengthened capacity to integrate social inclusion into environmental initiatives within their own communities.

Inclusion First is not only about learning new tools — it is about rethinking how climate action is structured, ensuring that sustainability initiatives become more human, more inclusive, and more effective.